Many hospitals include a hospital pharmacy department that is responsible for dispensing medications to patients in various areas of the hospitals. In some hospitals, the medications are dispensed in a distributed environment with a central pharmacy (or multiple “central” pharmacies) and a number of medication dispensing apparatuses (e.g., medication dispensing cabinet) remotely situated in various locations throughout the hospital. The remotely-located medication dispensing apparatuses allow medications to be stored and dispensed closer to the location of patient care, which may provide a number of benefits, including simplifying and speeding up the process of clinicians obtaining medications for their patients.
The typical process of dispensing medications from medication dispensing apparatuses includes a number of steps, such as requiring identification of the clinician dispensing the medications, identification of the patient for which the medications are dispensed, medication interaction checking, allergy checking, duplicate checking, medication counting, and other pharmacy verification. These steps are typically required for a variety of reasons, including patient safety, controlling the dispensing of medications, and auditing purposes, to name a few.
This process of obtaining medications from a medication dispensing apparatus is acceptable in normal medication administrations for patients. However, there are some emergency situations in which the process may be unacceptably slow. Crash carts are often stocked with a limited set of drugs to provide quick access for dire patient situations, but there are a number of other emergency situations that occur in hospitals that do not require a crash cart or require medications not included in a crash cart.